


Of Our Own Device

by winethroughwater



Category: Carnivale
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 18:51:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winethroughwater/pseuds/winethroughwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Iris had gone with Justin and Tommy to LA for that broadcast during "Los Moscos" instead of being left behind?  (Shameless PWP and use of "Hotel California" lyrics in the title)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_“Have you seen my warm coat?”_

 

_“You know exactly where your coat is.”_

 

She’s right.  He does.  It’s downstairs on the rack by the door like it always is.

 

But neither of them are actually talking about his coat.

 

Fighting with his sister can wait until he’s home later, so he lets her accusation stand.

 

She grabs his elbow as he’s leaving and when he looks into her face, she’s on the verge of tears.  He can’t tell whether she’s just that angry or if she’s genuinely hurt.  

 

He wants her to sulk or yell or even to hit him--but not to cry. He’s never been able to bear the sight of her tears, not as children--when Irina’s tears inevitably led to his own sobs--and not even now that they’ve left childhood so far behind.  He’s surprised she doesn’t use this to her advantage more often.   

 

She has to pay for the fire, the last time he’d seen her cheeks stained--wet trails washing away the falling ashes--has to pay for the lives she took, but she has to come by that remorse honestly.  

 

Besides, punishing her by pushing her away is also punishing himself.  

 

A night away couldn’t hurt.

 

“I really shouldn’t indulge your paranoia.”

 

“I’m not being--”

 

Before she can argue anymore, he cuts her off.  

 

“Pack a bag, but be quick.  We do have a train to catch.”  

 

* * *

 

Tommy looks at his watch for the third time in fifteen minutes and wonders exactly what is taking Justin so long.  If they don’t leave soon, they’ll miss their train and one of the best opportunities that has come their way so far.  

 

When Justin finally does appear, with Iris trailing a few steps behind, Tommy eyes the two cases he sits next to the door suspiciously.  He particularly does not like the smug set of Iris’s lips and what it suggests.

 

“My sister will be joining us,” Justin announces.

 

“There’s no need--”

 

Justin simply waves off his complaint and asks, “There’s no reason Iris can’t come along, is there Tommy?”  

 

“This is a business trip, not a vacation.”

 

“Nonsense.  It would do us all good to get away.”  

 

Justin helps Iris on with her coat, holding it open as she slips her arms into the sleeves.  He sweeps the hair that had gotten caught beneath her collar free and adds, “Even the Lord rested on the seventh day.”

 

“ _He_ didn’t have a radio program to get off the ground.”

 

“That’s dangerously close to blasphemy, Mr. Dolan.”  

 

Iris’s voice, as always since her brother’s return, is laced with both amusement--at his expense--and irritation--at his very presence.  

 

Justin laughs as he buttons his own coat.

 

* * *

 

They’re a bit like watching children vie for a parent’s attention, Justin thinks, watching Tommy and Iris face each other with feigned smiles across the small table that separates their seats on the train.  Whatever he had worried about happening between them when he returned was long over.

 

Tommy’s ambition had obviously won out over his attraction to Iris, and his sister, well, her calf was resting against his in the close space of their seats.

 

* * *

 

The train crosses a bridge and his hand meets hers under the table, fingers squeezing together.  He knows she’s holding her breath just as he is.  It’s childish but some talismans-turned-habits are impossible to break, especially when the fall had been so far and the water so cold.

 

Thankfully this bridge is short.

 

* * *

 

He sees to the hotel rooms himself.  It’s certainly not the nicest in Los Angeles but it’s far more extravagant than anything they would have stayed in before.  

 

If he didn’t understand how vital this broadcast was to his mission, he would have dawdled just to watch Tommy continue to fidget and check his watch again and stare sourly at Iris.

 

But it is important so he pulls Iris aside in the lobby and suggests, “Why don’t you do some shopping while we’re at the station?  And we’ll see you back here in a couple of hours for dinner.”

 

* * *

 

They’d been running behind Tommy’s carefully plotted schedule, but arrived in time to be rushed directly into the sound booth.

 

Later, as they are leaving, one of the technicians calls him back.

 

“There was a man here looking for you earlier. Weird fella. He left a card.”

 

The card he’s handed reads simply “Wilfred Talbot Smith” with an address he doesn’t recognize on one side in plain type.  Scratched on the back in a barely legible handwriting is “Others have come before the Usher.”  

 

Justin immediately scans the KZAK lobby but it’s empty save for the men who’d been in the booth with them and Tommy.

 

He tucks the card into his pocket for safekeeping.

 

* * *

 

 

He changes for dinner and it’s strange to have shed his skin in such a way; somehow his tie feels heavier than his cleric’s collar did.

 

Iris grins, though, when she opens her door.

 

The dress she’s wearing buttons demurely at the neck and falls to mid-calf in the usual way.  It’s even the same dark, navy tone she favors so often.  The sleeves are perhaps fuller, the fabric richer.  What holds his attention are three thin slits that divide her bodice.  They stop before her slip even begins but when she moves, he can see a hint of her collar bones, a dusting of freckles.  They practically beg for his fingers to trace between them.

 

Instead he says, “You look nice.”

 

“So do you.  You should wear suits more often.”

 

She fusses over his tie which he knows very well isn’t crooked.  Secretly he likes that she can find dozens of ways to touch him every day, often in front of others, that are all perfectly innocent yet so intimate.  

 

Her hair is almost completely down in loose curls that fall to her shoulders.

 

“You should wear your hair like this more often.”

 

* * *

 

He’s almost always wrong when he asks, but he does anyways.

 

“Is that a new dress?”

 

“No.”

 

* * *

 

The elevator is empty save for the bellman when they enter.

 

“The lobby,” Justin directs and when the man turns away from them, he drops his hand to the small of her back, lets it wander a bit lower than is strictly decent.  His fingers fan out then dig in just enough to bunch her dress and quicken her pulse.

 

“I heard your broadcast.”

 

She sounds completely composed but when he glances down at her, there’s the slightest hint of a blush on her cheeks.

 

“And?” he coaxes.  He knows how well it went, that his Church of the Air will be a success, but he still wants to hear her say it.

 

She searches for the right word and he can’t help but lean a bit closer.

 

“Inspiring.”

 

When the doors open, his hand moves safely to her elbow.  

 

* * *

 

Dinner is almost as awkward as the drive to the train station and the trip itself had been.

 

The waiter offers them dessert and cocktails after, but Justin declines.  

 

“Nothing for me. I’m afraid it’s been a long day. I think I’ll turn in.”

 

Tommy and Iris rise, following his lead like marionettes, but he motions for them to sit.

 

“The two of you have been working so hard lately.”  He smiles first at Tommy then at Iris.  “Stay and enjoy yourselves.”

 

He has to stifle a laugh as both of them start to protest at the same time.

 

“I insist.”

 

He has a quick word with the waiter as he leaves and lingers near the lobby long enough to see the bottle of wine delivered to their table and to overhear Iris saying, “We didn’t order that.”

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later he hears her door open and close--her room is next to his, of course, and Tommy’s somewhere on another floor.  

 

Iris had stayed downstairs longer than he had thought she would.  

 

* * *

 

She’s standing in stocking-feet when she answers the door.  

 

To her credit, she doesn’t squeal or struggle when he pins her against the back of the door she’d just closed.  He shifts against her until she’s barely able to balance on tiptoe.

 

“If the dress isn’t new, what’s underneath must be.”

 

His hand steals under her dress and finds the top of her stocking--a very expensive stocking given how soft it is beneath his fingers.

 

Her own fingers lace around the back of his neck so she can pull him closer.

 

“Mr. Dolan seemed to be my date tonight.”  Her voice drops to a teasing whisper.  “Maybe I should go down the hall and show him instead.”

 

He kisses her until he’s sure Tommy Dolan is the last thing on her mind, jest or not.

 

Across her tongue, he can taste an unfamiliar bitterness.  

 

 _How much better is your love than wine_ \--Solomon’s words come to mind as they so often do when he is with his sister.

 

He says, “You taste like wine,” but she is much, much better.

 

“You could have stayed.”

 

“I prefer to experience it vicariously.”

 

The taste of her is going straight to his head, making him dizzier than any whiskey passed around a campfire had ever done.

 

Maybe that’s why he can’t seem to find a zipper or buttons on her dress no matter how his hands wander.

 

Finally he steps back and asks, “How does this dress work?”

  
She’s staring up at him, watching his reaction, but he watches her fingers pluck at the button of her collar then reveal a row of tiny, hidden hooks that run down the bodice.  They pop open, one by one; the weight of the fabric pulls her dress open enough to reveal the ivory lace and peach silk beneath.

 

* * *

 

She pushes a thin strap off one shoulder and then the other, tugs down on the fabric when it catches on her hips until it falls to pool around her feet, joining her dress.

 

“Well?” she asks when he doesn’t immediately respond.

 

  
“What was the word you used?   _Inspiring_?”

 

\--tbc--

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this in bits because I'm super busy at work right now.

He sits on the edge of the bed where she had led him.

 

_Inspiring_ had been the right word.

 

Divested of dress and slip, she’s clad only in silk stockings just a shade or two darker than her own skin, garters and panties in the same peach silk as her slip had been.  They’re trimmed along the edges with pale lace and embellished at her hips with delicate ribbons that demand to be toyed with later.

 

He unknots his tie and pulls it free of his collar, drops it beside him on the duvet and undoes the first few buttons on his shirt before holding out his hand and saying, “Come here.”

 

When she’s close enough his fingers do briefly tug at the bow over her left hip.  They soon abandon such trivialities to spread across her stomach and higher to cup her breast. Her breast fits perfectly into his palm, made to fit exactly there.  Her nipple peaks against his touch and even harder when he replaces his hand with his mouth and circles her areola with his tongue.  When his teeth scrape across the sensitive flesh, her fingers grip his collar.

 

His thumbs smooth over the ridge of her hipbones through the peach fabric; the color accentuates the scattering of freckles across the tops of her thighs which he knows is for his benefit--she’s never been able to see the unique beauty in them the way he has.

 

“Turn around.”

 

Obediently, if unsteadily, she turns her back to him.

 

He snaps one of her garters and she slaps his hand hard enough to sting.  

 

The look she gives him over her shoulder is one she had perfected during their childhood, the elder sister’s reproach for fingers that pinch and tickle when she’d rather them not.  

 

It’s worth his sister’s ire, however, to run his thumb across the pink spot he’s created on the back of her thigh and watch her shiver despite her annoyance.

 

He draws her arms back, traps both of her wrists in one of his hands.  He leans forward and slowly kisses his way down her spine.  When he lets go of her wrists, her hands stay at the small of her back.  

 

He loops his tie around them twice, ties it into a tight knot that will ruin the fabric and she doesn’t protest.

 

He trails his fingers under the edge of the lace that frames the perfect curve of her ass and watches goosebumps raise over her skin.  

 

Such is the stuff of inspiration.

 

 


End file.
